Faculty/Author Profile

Arthur B. Culvahouse, Jr.

O'Melveny & Myers LLP

Chair

Washington, DC, USA

Arthur B. Culvahouse, Jr. is the Chair of O’Melveny & Myers LLP, an international law firm of approximately 1,000 lawyers with offices in Beijing, Brussels, Century City, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Newport Beach, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington, DC. Mr. Culvahouse has practiced law with O’Melveny from 1976 to 1984, and from 1989 to the present. In addition to his executive duties as Chair of the Firm, Mr. Culvahouse has an active corporate governance, internal investigations and compliance, and strategic counseling practice.

From March 1987 through January 1989, Mr. Culvahouse served as Counsel to the President of the United States. As White House Counsel, Mr. Culvahouse advised President Ronald Reagan on matters ranging from the Iran-Contra investigations, to the Supreme Court nominations of Robert Bork and Anthony Kennedy, to the legal aspects of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty; and he chaired the inter-agency lawyers Committee on War Powers and the President’s Committee on Federal Judicial Nominations. In January 1989, President Reagan awarded Mr. Culvahouse the Presidential Citizens’ Medal, an award established in 1969 to “recognize citizens who performed exemplary deeds of service for the country or their fellow citizens.”

From June 1973 until November 1976, Mr. Culvahouse was Chief Legislative Assistant and Counsel to US Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr.

From 1990 through 1992, Mr. Culvahouse served as a member of the Federal Advisory Committee on Nuclear Failsafe and Risk Reduction, appointed by the Secretary of Defense, to evaluate and recommend improvements in the United States Nuclear Command and Control System. In December of 1992, Secretary of Defense Cheney awarded Mr. Culvahouse the Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service. Mr. Culvahouse’s prior service on boards and commissions includes service on The President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the Intelligence Oversight Board (2006-2009); the US Chamber of Commerce Commission on the Regulation of US Capital Markets in the 21st Century (2006-2007); the Supreme Court Fellows Commission (2002-2005), the Board of Visitors of the US Naval Academy (1989-1991); and the Counterintelligence Advisory Panel to the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (1989-1990).

Mr. Culvahouse serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Brookings Institution, the Leadership Board of the Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, the Board of Directors of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, and the Nuclear Command and Control System Federal Advisory Committee appointed in 2008 by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Mr. Culvahouse received his J.D. in 1973 from New York University and earned his B.S. from the University of Tennessee. Mr. Culvahouse is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, California, New York, Tennessee, and the US Supreme Court. Mr. Culvahouse was born on July 4, 1948, and is a native of Ten Mile, Tennessee.